The Vow

Posted on February 9, 2012 at 6:39 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	High School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for an accident scene, sexual content, partial nudity, and some language
Profanity:	A few s-words
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking
Violence/ Scariness:	Car crash with injuries
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	February 10, 2012
Date Released to DVD:	May 8, 2012
Amazon.com ASIN:	B005LAIGSM

More than any other attribute, memory is what defines our identity and our connections to each other. When a young woman’s traumatic brain injury erases her memory not just of having married her husband but even of having met him, both of them face daunting challenges about who they are and what they can be to each other.

The first time was so easy. Leo (Channing Tatum) sees Paige (Rachel McAdams), a free-spirited art student, and they are immediately drawn to each other. It was just two weeks later, we will learn, when she first said, almost to herself, that she loved him. They had a quirky-cute wedding at the Chicago Art Institute (near the Seurat painting Ferris Bueller visited on his day off) with their quirky-cute friends and their vows written on the menus of their favorite little coffee shop (Cafe Mnemonic, a bit of memory foreshadowing). They love, love, love each other until their car is hit by a snow plow and she goes through the windshield. When she wakes up from a chemically-induced coma, she thinks Leo is a doctor. She has no memory of him or of the past five years. She thinks she is still in law school and engaged to Jeremy (Scott Speedman). She can’t figure out why her hair is so unstyled or how she got a tattoo. Leo has to try to make her fall in love with him all over again, and this time it will take much longer.

It is inspired by the true story of Kim and Krickett Carpenter, who wrote a book about about their experience but the marketing is intended to tie it to the stars’ previous appearances in Nicholas Sparks movies. It does have Sparks-ian themes of love and loss and it has a gooey layer of Hollywood candy topping, but it is a bit sharper and less sudsy than Sparks movies like “The Notebook” and “Dear John.” Leo and Paige and their friends all so quirky-cute they might be Shields and Yarnell performing in “Godspell.” The further it departs from the real story, jettisoning the importance of the couple’s faith and some of messiness of her recovery and throwing in a tired twist with Paige’s wealthy, uptight, controlling family, the further it gets from what does work in the movie, the palpable tenderness and devotion of Leo and the wrenching challenge of trying to reconnect with Paige as her uncertainty about who she is makes her retreat. The great philosophy professor Stanley Cavell has written about the enduring appeal of the “comedies of remarriage,” movies that are not about falling in love but about re-falling. There is something very captivating about the idea of someone who knows us and is willing to fall in love with us anyway.

Parents should know that this movie includes brief language (s-word), sexual references, adultery and male rear nudity, one punch, alcohol, and a car accident with injuries.

Family discussion: Why was Paige afraid to remember her life with Leo? What does “I wanted to earn it” mean? What does the name of the place Leo and Paige went to eat mean?

If you like this, try: “The Notebook” and “Dear John” and this poignant and inspiring Washington Post article about a similar real-life “in sickness and in health” love story. And read the Carpenters’ book, The Vow: The True Events that Inspired the Movie.

Black History Month: DVDs for Families

Posted on February 4, 2012 at 3:58 pm

Great choices for Black History Month from Scholastic:

Duke Ellington… and more stories to celebrate great figures in African American history.

The DVD includes gently animated and beautifully narrated versions of four books about important figures in black history.

Duke Ellington Forest Whitaker reads this tribute to one of the 20th century’s most celebrated and influential musicians.

Ellington Was Not a Street Phylicia Rashad reads Ntozake Shange’s story about growing up amidst many of the great figures of African-American history.

Ella Fitzgerald: The Tale of a Vocal Virtuosa She had an exquisite voice and unsurpassed musicianship to use it like a jazz instrument. Billy Dee Williams tells the story of how she got her sound.

John Henry Samuel L. Jackson reads the story based on the famous legend and folk ballad about the hammer-driving man who could beat anyone, even the machine.

March On!… and More Stories About African American History

March On! The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King’s story is lovingly told by his sister, Christine King Ferris.

Martin’s Big Words Dr. King’s story shows how big ideas compellingly described change the world.

Rosa A brave woman decides to be the one to lead the fight against segregation in this story of Rosa Parks.

Henry’s Freedom Box Henry “Box” Brown was a slave who mailed himself to freedom in a daring escape.

Big Miracle

Posted on February 2, 2012 at 6:00 pm

B+

Lowest Recommended Age:	4th - 6th Grades
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG for language
Profanity:	Brief strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Alcohol, character gets tipsy
Violence/ Scariness:	Human and animal characters in peril, references to hunting and eating whales, sad animal death
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters
Date Released to Theaters:	February 3, 2012
Date Released to DVD:	June 18, 2012
Amazon.com ASIN:	B005LAIGQ4

“You’re not as easy to hate as I thought,” an oil man tells an environmental activist in “Big Miracle,” the heartwarming true story of a 1987 effort to rescue three Alaskan whales. It could just as well have been said by any of the more than a dozen lead characters who find themselves part of a “cockeyed coalition.” People who viewed each other with suspicion, if not downright animosity, are brought together to save a family of whales affectionately named after Flintstones characters.

The obstacle for the whales was five miles of ice that had to be cut away in sub-zero temperatures so the whales could get to the ocean. The bigger obstacle was the struggle for the humans to try to find a way to work together.

“Big Miracle” is the story of a rescue operation put together by people who each wanted something different. Native Inupiat whale hunters wanted to “harvest” (kill and eat) the whales. Environmentalists wanted to protect them. The US military did not want to ask for help from a Soviet ice cutting ship. An oil developer wanted to improve his reputation. Two Minnesota entrepreneurs wanted to show off their ice melting machine. Politicians wanted to look good or look innocent. And journalists wanted a story.

Director Ken Kwapis and screenwriters Jack Amiel and Michael Begler deftly keep the multi-character story from getting too cluttered with the help of appealing performances that give us an instant connection to the humans who are literally trying to save the whales. Standouts in the cast include John Krasinski as a television reporter who is tired of being stuck in a backwater where nothing exciting happens, Kathy Baker as an unexpected supporter with inside information, Dermot Mulroney as a frustrated military officer, and John Pingayeck on his first movie role as a grandfather trying to teach his grandson to listen to the world outside his earphones.

When the reporter’s story is picked up for a national broadcast, the first to arrive is Rachel (an earnest and believably bedraggled Drew Barrymore). She is an environmental activist with no resources but a good story. One by one, those who resist getting involved revise their positions when they are in the spotlight. No one wants to risk bad publicity–or pass up the chance to look heroic.

Even as the people come together, the logistical challenge becomes overwhelming and — parent alert — the ultimate rescue is bittersweet, not entirely triumphant.

The people stories, especially a trumped-up romantic triangle, are not as intriguing as the portrayal of pre-Internet news media. With only three network news broadcasts just half an hour each evening, everyone from school children to White House staffers watched the same stories. The archival footage is like the hub that holds all the parts of the story together, and there are some pointed jabs at media focus on the sensational over the significant.

A turning point comes when White House aide Kelly Meyers (based on Bonnie Carroll) persuades President Ronald Reagan, at the end of his term, to call on his counterpart in the USSR for help from a Soviet ice cutting ship. (Be sure to watch for photos of Carroll’s real life wedding to the military officer she met at the rescue over the closing credits.).

Meyers sets up a “Hello Gorby, this is Ronnie” phone call that serves as a literal ice breaker for the whales and a metaphorical one for two nations in the very earliest stages of post-Evil Empire relations. The people saved the whales, but the real miracle was that they learned their differences were small compared to what they had in common with each other and with the giant mammals who needed their help.

Parents should know that this movie includes animal and human peril and references to hunting and eating whales. One of the whales dies (off-screen).

Family discussion: How many different reasons did the characters have for helping the whales? How did the risk of bad publicity or the benefits of good publicity change their behavior? What is different now from the era when this took place?

If you like this, try: “Free Willy” and “Whale Rider” and the book about the real-life rescue by Tom Rose

A Smile as Big as the Moon — Tonight on ABC

Posted on January 29, 2012 at 12:48 pm

Watch ABC tonight for the heartwarming “A Smile as Big as the Moon,” with John Corbett as a teacher who brings his special needs students to space camp. It is based on the real life story of Mike Kersjes, whose book about his experience is A Smile as Big as the Moon: A Special Education Teacher, His Class, and Their Inspiring Journey Through U.S. Space Camp. He proved that for students facing Tourette’s syndrome, Down’s syndrome, dyslexia, eating disorders, and a variety of emotional problems, the rigors of astronaut training were just another challenge. Kersjes teaches special needs students in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He focuses on helping his students recognize their strengths. An article in Scholastic Scope magazine about the Space Camp for gifted and talented students inspired him to begin what has evolved into a non-profit called Space is Special.

Kersjes says, “I believe in teaching kids to challenge themselves, to question the labels that had been thrust upon them.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtElcB8q8m8

Red Tails

Posted on January 19, 2012 at 6:00 pm

The official military documents of the 1940’s said that African-Americans were “mentally inferior” “subservient and cowards” and not fit to fly planes. The Tuskegee Airmen of WWII proved that African-Americans were outstanding pilots. They had to fight to be trained and they had to fight to be allowed to do combat missions, but once they were in the air they demonstrated skill, courage, and dedication that made their divisions one of the most highly decorated of the war. For George Lucas, a long-time scholar of aerial combat, a film about the Tuskegee Airmen was a passion project. When the studios told him that they would not finance an expensive movie with no white leading characters, he put up almost $100 million of his own money for a feature film and a documentary about one of the most inspiring stories of the 20th century.

It has the best of intentions, an excellent cast, and thrilling battle footage. But the scenes on the ground are clunky. It is in part because the filmmakers, with some justice, do not trust the audience to know very much about history, both of the second World War and of institutionalized racism, so they feel they have to explain everything. But screenwriters John Ridley and Aaron McGregor (the “Boondocks” comic strip) make the dialog so expository-heavy it is a surprise the aircraft are not too weighed down by them to get off the ground.

Cuba Gooding, Jr. and Terrence Howard (both, by coincidence, playing Tuskegee Airmen for the second time) play officers inspired by real-life General Benjamin O. Davis. Gooding plays Major Emanuelle Stance, the commanding officer of the Italian air base where the Tuskegee Airmen are waiting to be allowed to fly missions and Howard plays Colonel A. J. Bullard, who is in Washington advocating for his fliers to be given a chance. The dignity and resolve Howard shows in meetings with a racist superior officer (“Breaking Bad’s” Bryan Cranston) shine despite the awkward dialog.

So does the terrific cast of young actors including Nate Parker, Elijah Kelly, Method Man, Ne-Yo, and, as the daredevil every war movie has to have (think of him as a WWII Maverick from “Top Gun”), British actor David Oyelowo. His nickname is “Lightning” and he’s the kind of guy who has to have one more swing around to hit one more target on the way home. There is the usual conflict between the by-the-rules guy and the rules-are-made-t0-be-broken guy and a sweet romance with a local girl who speaks no English. The script falters but the power of the real story, the sincerity and screen presence of the actors and the dedication and gallantry of the Tuskegee Airmen and the men who portray them make this a stirring tribute.

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